


swordsarebetter is online

by balter



Series: flowershop au [2]
Category: Attack on Space - Fandom, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2268144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/balter/pseuds/balter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Outside of flowers, Rem's one other passion is gaming. After a month of dealing with an aggressive jogger, he could use a break.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swordsarebetter is online

**Author's Note:**

> Today Attack on Space ends. I won't get the chance to watch the finale today, so I figured now would be the time to post some sorta fluff before I am devastated tomorrow.

“So is he still coming around?” 

Rem’s avatar walked straight into a tree. He blinked in surprise at the impact and pushed away from the bark, two health points recovering. A Level 94 player and he had just _walked into a tree._ Brushing off robes clinking with concealed potions and talismans, he turned to stare incredulously at the gamer moseying along behind him. 

_“What?”_

The other man did not seem even vaguely apologetic, standing with a glowing patch of air in front of him to indicate that he was checking his inventory. Poet, full username a-very-deep-poet, had a habit of saying things that caught Rem off guard. Such as asking if _he_ was still coming around. Who was _he?_

“A while back you said there was this pissed-off jogger going past your shop in the mornings,” Poet finally deigned to clarify, selecting a bow and loaded quiver from his inventory. Apparently he was planning to go hunting. “Is he still coming around?” 

“U-um, yeah. He is.” Rem frowned as he thought of the other man, angry red eyes and a sneering mouth. After that morning some weeks ago, he had been running by the store every day as Rem set the sign out, stopping in his jog to drop a mean comment or two. “It’s really annoying.” 

The Axian stopped for a moment, peering up at Poet suspiciously. “Wait, I mentioned him once. More than a _month_ ago.” 

“I have flawless memory,” Poet replied, his lips curling up smugly. Rem wondered again if his real face looked anything like his avatar’s, slightly spiky hair and red-brown eyes that often seemed too dark. 

Rem frowned again. “You’re creepy.” 

“No, creepy is _those._ ” Poet pointed with a gloved hand, the other occupied with holding his bow. “What the hell are they— _raptor_ horses?” 

“They’re just horses, Poet.” Rem shook his head, somewhat exasperated. “And I thought I was a city boy. But wait—” His voice became more animated as he pulled up his personal menu and started checking the full inventory. “I think I can… yes, I can tame it! Takes about twenty minutes per horse if you do it right, but it’ll mean getting to checkpoints a lot faster from this point on.” 

“Twenty minutes per?” Poet sounded dubious. 

“Hey, if you wanna stay on foot from here on out, be my guest.” He changed his mage’s staff out for a lasso and saved his protective mage’s robes for later. When going after horses, it was best to be light on the feet. “Besides, they’re not that scary.” 

“I just heard you swallow.” 

“Sh, shut up,” Rem stammered. He shot a glare over his shoulder. “I gotta stay focused!” 

Poet shrugged, waving for Rem to carry on. “I’ll hunt in the meantime,” he decided. “Our party’s food supply is running low.” 

He quickly distanced himself from the other gamer. Rem spent the next forty-seven minutes trying to coax two horses into the domestic lifestyle while avoiding _lots_ of razor teeth and heavy hooves. Poet did his hunting and nearly got himself dropped into a vat of molten gold (somehow these things always happened to Poet when he went off on his own) before another pair of gamers, System_A and Conduit_E, had come and bailed him out. 

“They’re pretty good,” he told Rem. “Especially that System guy, he’s a pro. Think we should ask them to join our party?” 

Rem rubbed a gloved hand over the scaly ridges up the top of one horse’s snout. It growled contentedly, munching at the treats in Rem’s hand. The other was napping out in the sun, its new set of reins and the friendly green health meter marking it as tamed. Rem didn’t have to take long to think over Poet’s suggestion. 

“You really think they would accept?” he said, making his doubt in the idea obvious. “I mean. We _do_ have Stab, you know.” 

Poet released a long sigh. It was the closest to yelling in frustration that he really ever got. “Why doesn’t this game let you kick people out of parties?” he wondered yet again. 

Stab was stabinthedark. Rem and Poet had invited him after seeing how he excelled in large scale combat scenarios—greater than Poet, only slightly inferior to Rem—and soon after he joined they realized why no one else wanted him. Stab was a terrific fighter, but his skill areas outside of that were sorely lacking. 

He couldn’t cast spells. He couldn’t tame animals. His one attempt at foraging had nearly poisoned the whole party and reset their entire game. And he didn’t get along with other gamers. 

Especially Poet. Whenever those two were online at the same time, Rem felt he was in the no-man’s-land of a verbal battle. While it was sometimes entertaining, most of the time he was terrified and kept looking for battle quests to keep the other two occupied. 

Stab also had a habit of doing things without consulting the other party members. Rem didn’t really know what he was supposed to do about it. Technically, as a senior player to both Poet and Stab, he was supposed to be in charge, but… that wasn’t a role he liked to think about. He was here to play, not to boss everyone else around. 

“Speak of the devil,” Poet muttered, and Rem turned as Stab’s familiar avatar came phasing in to join them. He wore an outfit of solid black with accents of deep red and purple, every fold concealing at least a knife or two. Stab really, really loved knives. His outright affection for them was another reason he didn’t get along with other players. He was kinda creepy. 

And… there was a _second_ avatar phasing in with him. From the rough brown tunic, it was obviously a new player. Poet muttered something unflattering under his breath, his mouth a thin line as he stashed away his bow. The quiver remained on his back. 

“Meet new user _swordsarebetter_ ,” Stab said with snide grandeur. The avatar—designed with red hair—scoffed. “We’re coworkers IRL,” Stab went on to explain. “He was talking shit about gamers, so I thought I’d—” 

“Bring him into the party without asking permission,” Poet interrupted. He glared. “Well, you’ve obviously done that much already.” 

Stab stared back evenly. Rem hoped the player’s real eyes were that eerie-looking outside of the game. “Do I need to ask for permission?” he queried, almost scathingly polite. 

“We’ve had this talk before, Stab,” Poet said. His tones were still level, but it was clear that he was getting irritated. From what Poet had been willing to admit when Rem first logged in, things were a little rough at home right now. “You’re not the leader.” 

“So who is? You?” Stab laughed. “ _Flower boy_ over there?” 

Rem sighed, his head bowing as the two went at it. There was no point in trying to stop them by now, so he went over to meet the new player. swordsarebetter, wasn’t it? Rem extended his hand to the avatar with an apologetic look. 

“Sorry about those two,” he said. “They, um… they do make a good team in combat, but, um they don’t really like each other.” The avatar turned to look up at him, movements stiff with unfamiliarity. He was probably using one of Stab’s old consoles. Red hair, red eyes. Why was Rem noticing that? 

“Pretty weak team if they can’t decide who the leader is,” he said bluntly. “Should’ve expected as much with this shithead being a part of it.” Rem cringed. It seemed the angry jogger had a companion in the gaming world. swordsarebetter looked him over. “But these here—stats, right? Yours are pretty good. What are you doing here? Team spirit or some shit?” 

“I, I guess?” Rem stammered. He’d never really thought about it. “I mean. I do my best playing on my own. Less distractions. But there are benefits to being in a party, too.” 

“So you don’t get along with people.” Before Rem could stammer an explanation that could avoid his social anxiety, the other player nodded shortly and grunted his agreement. “Me neither. People are fucking morons. Especially Ky—uh, stabinthedark.” 

“We usually call each other by our gamer names here,” Rem told him. The avatar stared up at him blankly, and he hurried to explain. “Uh, that is… your coworker’s username is stabinthedark, but his gamer name is Stab. The other guy there is a-very-deep-poet, gamer name Poet. My gamer name is, uh… well, I’m… I’m Florist…” 

swordsarebetter laughed. It was a short bark of a sound, enough to make Rem flinch back. “ _Florist?_ The hell’s that short for?” 

Rem could feel his ears reddening. Good thing that didn’t show up here in the game. “Uh, um, killer-florist. I have a friend who likes getting people drunk sometimes and she had me make my account on here once and last time it was a tattoo on my—” 

“But are you _actually_ a florist?” 

“Uh.” Rem was looking anywhere, anywhere but at the new player. “Yes.” 

“That’s fucking lame.” 

Oh yeah, the angry jogger _definitely_ had a soulmate here. Rem frowned at swordsarebetter. “Well, what do _you_ do?” 

“Market; sporting goods. I test and advertise. Stab is with the hunting goods division of the company. Tests and sells.” 

“He doesn’t advertise?” 

“That kid? Fuck no, he looks like he hunts _Axians,_ not deer.” 

Rem couldn’t argue with that. “Yeah… A-anyway, what did you want your gamer name to be? Sword?” 

“Swords,” the other player decided. His avatar’s eyes seemed to gleam. “Two are better than one.” 

There was something scary about the way he said that. It made a lot of sense that he worked with Stab. Rem twitched out of his thoughts as a notification popped in front of him. He had two hours before he was supposed to start opening the shop. Titans, it was that late already? 

“S-sorry. I’ve gotta go.” Turning to Poet he said, “Poet, I’m sending you the care notes on the horses. Get them to a good stable before logging out, okay? The closest town is to the east, you should find a place there.” 

“Alright.” Poet nodded, checking his inbox. “Notes received. See you later, Florist.” 

“Have fun,” Stab sang sarcastically. The last thing Rem heard was Swords impatiently cussing him out. 

He pulled his headset off and flopped back on his bed. A light blinked on the side of his tablet, indicating a private message from a party member.

_\- Message from: a-very-deep-poet_

New kid’s name is Sai. 23. Works at Paint Goods, which is run by a family called Paint and does not actually sell paint. Kid tests and advertises sporting goods. 

Looks like he’s a jogger, too. 

_[image enclosed]_

Rem selected the necessary icon to download the image, and then his eyes flared wide in a panic. He turned off the tablet and fumbled to set it back on the nightstand. The florist stared up at his ceiling, feeling his heart rate spike. 

Swords was Sai. Sai jogged. Sai was the angry jogger. That picture from Poet left no doubt. 

Rem dropped his hands over his face, groaning loudly before whining a single question into his already lightening room: 

_“Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?”_

**Author's Note:**

> System_A and Conduit_E are Armin and Elias. Wowwww so clever.
> 
> Also, raptor horses. aisling07 gets credit for the raptor horses.


End file.
